Don Garber Admits MLS Sucks

That's not exactly what the MLS commissioner said. But it's implicit in his acknowledgment that soccer fans in the US would rather watch good soccer than his league:

Exposure to top-level international soccer and foreign leagues via TV and the Internet, combined with the changing demographics of the country, has increased demand for quality “content,” Garber said. This is a new challenge for the league, one Garber didn’t anticipate for another ten years.

Ten years? What has he been watching for the previous decade? He does know that Europe has a good 100-year head start on us (and well as piles more cash), doesn't he?

The article goes on to point out that the league is considering two ways to address the problem. First, increase the number of foreign players. Second, allow teams to sign more designated players.

Funny. He fails to mention a possible increase in the salary cap. Sorry, you're just not going to put a decent product on the pitch, or at least one that will ever compare with the EPL, La Liga, or Serie A (much less Ligue 1, the Eredivisie, or even the better South American leagues) with a $2.2M salary cap. It's that simple. Shit, you try to live off $34K in NYC (as 6 players on their roster currently earn in).

Worse, if you up the number of designated players without allowing for a larger cap, you get the LA Galaxy—a team with 65%* of its salary tied up in two players and the last place finish that goes with that.

The full article is worth a read if only because it paints Garber as an even more puzzling figure. He's not an idiot and he certainly understands where his league sits in the scope of the American sports landscape, but sometimes he doesn't seem to have a clue what he's doing to address the challenges facing the league.

For example, while he fully amits the quality of the game here lags behind other leagues—Exhibit A: last night's borderline unwatchable feature match on ESPN2 between Kansas City and RBNY—he doesn't see expansion as a hindrance to remedying that. Says Garber: “I don’t think we’re near the realm of over-expansion. When is enough? Probably 20 teams in four to six to eight to 10 years.”

But if you've already stretched the limits of the quality you can find in American players then yeah, there's no way adding 60-plus roster spots (expansion already slated for Philadelphia, Vancouver and Portland) will do anything but dilute the already shallow talent pool. Yeah, those $40M checks are probably nice, but if it's just lining owners pockets, it's not doing much for the future of the league.

That doesn't make Garber the first commissioner to talk out of both sides of his mouth but it does make him seem like he lacks a fundamental understanding of how to realistically deal with one of the biggest problems his league faces.

Additionally, the league seems to have a top down approach to building the league (i.e. get stars to draw crowds and hope those starts drag the quality of play upwards). Two problems. First, even when MLS gets "stars" it generally gets them when they are well past their prime. More importantly, though, it doesn't really square with one of Garber's other (somewhat insightful) admissions: “We’re not trying to create soccer fans, we’re trying to convert soccer fans into fans of MLS”

Stars put butts in seats, true. But that's more typical of a casual sports fan who might be interested in checking out the game. David Beckham probably can get that person to open up his wallet and check out an MLS game. But if Garber knows that he's not going to convert regular sports fans into soccer fans, why doesn't he know that savvy soccer fans don't really want to see David Beckham in the US? They know he can't run, can't tackle, can't use his left foot, etc.

Most American soccer fans really want to like MLS and get behind it. They root for it in a way they root for the underdog. But the quality is too uneven. Last year's SuperLiga final was as good as almost anything you'd see in the Colaship. Last night's Red Bull v. Wizards match was borderline garbage.

Teams can build all the soccer-specific stadia they want but simply building them doesn't mean the fans will come... unless there is something consistently worth watching out there.

Maybe the league is banking the increased revenues from those stadia to up player salaries, but Garber shouldn't have to look far to learn the lesson that the stadium is secondary. In baseball, the Pirates have one of the nicer parks in the league, but PNC is empty because the team sucks. Conversely the commissioner can look at his own league. JFK RFK is an awful venue, but the fans turn up because they have a decent side to watch.

*Deliberate hyperbole. For more accurate math, see comments.